Alexander Pushkin remembered

Prominent Pushkin expert Valentin Nepomnyashchy says that without Alexander Pushkin Russian culture would simply not be happening, that he is the heart and soul of the Russian people. “The civilized world wants to build a paradise but there will be no paradise on earth. What we can preserve here, however, is our living soul and Pushkin is of great help here managing, in some miraculous way, to bring together the traditions of secular literature and those of the Holy Russia of old. This is soothing we desperately need today,” the expert says.

This year’s anniversary as marked by the first world congress of Alexander Pushkin’s descendants, nearly a hundred of whom came to Russia, many for the first time. The State Pushkin Museum is holding an exclusive anniversary exposition of the poet’s personal effects and there is an art festival now underway in the fashionable Pushkin café in downtown Moscow. Highlighting the event is the famous French actress Fannie Ardan. A devoted fan of Alexander Pushkin’s, she admits that Yevgeny Onegin is her ideal of a man. She even recited a few lines from the poet’s best known novel in verse

I write to you – what would one more? What else is there that I could say?…

In St. Petersburg British singer Andrew Goodwin performed Yevgeny Onegin’s part in Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s eponymous opera and Czech conductor Peter Feranez steered the orchestra through an excellent performance of the Queen of Spades, also by Pushkin. A Pushkin’s Tales Through the Eyes of Children festival is now underway in China and the city of London is playing host to the traditional Pushkin in Britain festival of Russian poetry and culture…